Briefly

Theorists: Left Hemispherists

The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of abstraction and theory. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 30.

The right hemisphere is the hemisphere of experience: fresh, unique, embodied . . . being present with things as they are. Id.

The Brownstone Institute was built on the rubble of COVID policy. It's cranking out some great stuff, which includes the cognitive humility that ought to inform every public policy decision. This piece by Jeffrey Tucker, which excoriates the experts who sit back with their theories and direct public policy that the working man must comply with, even though theory conflicts with reality, is a good sample of its work.

Tucker's piece is strongly "hemispheric." The theorists are left-hemisphere mavens. They abstract ideas and formulate theories without regard to the huge body of evidence that no human being can grasp, all the while ignorant that they are invincibly ignorant. And they're so cocksure, they're insufferable and "totalitarianish" in their positions.

That's also a left-hemisphere thing (not exact quotes but close):

The left hemisphere often doesn’t know that it doesn’t know. There are plenty of medical cases (say, in stroke victims with an impaired right hemisphere) in which the left hemisphere not only clearly doesn’t know what it’s talking about but behaves as though it knows perfectly well. “[T]he left hemisphere is more self-directed, enclosed, self-validating—in thrall to its theory.” Matter, 44 The left hemisphere is reluctant to admit its ignorance. Master, 215

The Five Parts of Existence Strikes Back and The Hemisphere Hypothesis

Part I What is the Tao? The Tao, also called “the act of existence (actus essendi),” “the first principle of Zen,” and the region on the other side of Aldous Huxley’s doors of perception, is the nameless reality that is logically, conceptually, and in reality prior to everything else.

Why the Left Hemisphere is Ineluctably Drawn to Abstractions

The left hemisphere’s primary goal is to allow its host to survive. Practical considerations drive the left hemisphere. You might think this means the left hemisphere isn’t much interested in abstractions or idealized notions. Such things, at first glance, aren’t practical. But the thing is, abstractions are

The Left Hemisphere Deranges People Out of the Local, Driving Them Through Rationalism into the Clutches of Ideology, including Nationalism

The community is embodied existence: you rub against the white trash and the petty; you rub against flawed humans like yourself. You have to deal with it . . . in reality, not in a rational idea. When you escape it through abstraction, you become the anti-Mother Teresa

That's also a left-hemisphere thing (not exact quotes but close):

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